The 25th session of the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) took place at FAO Headquarters, Rome on 26-30 September 2016. One of the documents discussed was “Achieving sustainable rural development through agricultural innovation” (COAG/2016/6), which encompassed the issue of agricultural biotechnologies. The “Summary report of the FAO International Symposium on the Role of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition (Rome, 15-17 February 2016)” was also provided to COAG as an information document (COAG/2016/INF/5). All documents, including the meeting report, are available at http://www.fao.org/about/meetings/coag/coag-25/list-of-documents/en/ (in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). COAG normally meets every two years and is one of FAO’s Governing Bodies providing overall policy and regulatory guidance on issues relating to agriculture, livestock, food safety, nutrition, rural development and natural resource management. For more information, contact FAO-COAG@fao.org.